[See the blog postings on households for models.]

Royal or sovereign households moved a lot–anywhere from twelve to a hundred moves per year, with the purpose of spreading the household’s consumption across many manors and maintaining the sovereign’s control and status. So the primary household at the seat of government functioned in cooperating with a household at the family’s ancestral residence, a traveling household, and smaller establishments at other manors and properties.

An ecclesiastical household (say, for a bishop, archbishop, or cardinal) also also moved frequently, but among fewer residents than a royal lord. A gentry household moved less frequently, and many heads of household had a town residence and a country manor or villa.

Depending on the family’s composition, households might employ a changing variety of tutors and governesses for male and female children, sergeants to provide specialized military or administrative training to the sons (typically), and (sometimes) advanced scholars or bards.

Large households, in particular, often would operate under formalized codes of conduct, with penalties for infractions against ordinances or regulations (fines, docked pay, day in stocks or confinement, dismissal). Theft and violence against other household members were serious offenses.

In some societies, nobles in household offices (younger sons, brothers or sisters of a lord) often served in someone else‘s household so that they preserved and developed a reputation of their own.

Sometimes the Marshalcy’s grooms and boys received only wages, with no hall privileges for meals. (Often they were hired from local villages and expected to return home after their labors.)